For years the debate about the possible contamination of space and other
planets with microbes from Earth has been a hot topic. Furthermore, the
discovery of sulfate minerals on the Martian surface make this planet
suitable to colonization by microorganisms adapted to survive and grow
under earthly extreme conditions. One of these microorganisms is
Desulfotalea psychrophila, a microbe able to generate cellular energy by
means of an enzyme known as the dissimilatory sulfate reductase. As all
bacterial enzymes are encoded within the bacterium nucleic acids, we
have designed experiments to study the ability of this microbe to
survive, grow and metabolize under simulated Martian conditions of
pressure, temperature and different concentrations of sulfate compounds.